RFE/RL NEWSLINE
Vol. 1, No. 166, 24 November 1997
HUNGARY'S FREE DEMOCRATS HOLD CONGRESS. At its 23 November
congress, the Alliance of Free Democrats announced that party
chairman and Interior Minister Gabor Kuncze will be the party's
candidate for prime minister in the 1998 parliamentary elections,
Hungarian media reported. Minister of Culture Balazs Magyar said
those elections will pit the ruling Socialist-Liberal coalition against
the alliance of Independent Smallholders and Young Democrats. In
other news, some 300 Roma in Szekesfehervar demonstrated against
a local government decision to remove 13 Romani families from a
dilapidated building to container homes. They were joined by writer
Gyorgy Konrad and Socialist parliamentary deputy Ivan Vitanyi. MSZ
MAIN OPPOSITION PARTY STEPS INTO THE BREACH. The
leadership of the main opposition Party of Social Democracy in
Romania (PDSR), meeting in the Transylvanian town of Sfantu
Gheorghe on 21 November, announced that nationalism is to be given
"priority" in the party's "political discourse." The party noted that its
nationalist policies are "constructive" and not identical with the
"extremist positions" of the PUNR and the Greater Romania Party, an
RFE/RL correspondent reported. The PDSR said it will rally all citizens
to the defense of the "national, unitary, sovereign, and independent"
character of the Romanian state. It added that it wants the Hungarian
Democratic Federation of Romania to "clarify its positions" on the
issue of autonomy for ethnic Hungarians. MS
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